Tomorrow at Phos I'll be talking about how God prepared and called Moses. The key idea is that to do what God asks of us we have to throw down our past, our security, and even our personal preferred dreams and pick up His dream for the world.
Here's some of what I'll be talking about tomorrow....
(The Biblical Background for this story of Moses is found in Exodus 1 to 4)
When God is ready to get something done in the world He chooses to use people to get 'er done most of the time.
Think of Moses being given an early passion to help the Hebrew people and actually killing an oppressive Egyptian taskmaster before running for his life. That passion was a predictor of Mose’s purpose on this planet. It would take a long season of refining in Moses’ life where he would learn the ways of the wilderness working as a shepherd.
He was saved for a purpose to be breast fed by his own Hebrew mother and yet raised in the splendor of Pharoah’s house. He would have the heart of a Hebrew and the Brain training of an Egyptian and then he would run to the wilderness where he would be trained as a Shepherd -- one skilled in the ways of wilderness survival.
All these places were boot-camps that God would use to prepare Moses. the people connections along the way where positioning him and preparing him for God’s purpose.
God would use his Hebrew heritage and passion to rescue his fellow Israelites.
God would use his Palatial Pharoic training and connections to open the doors of Pharoah to him when the show-down became imminent.
God would use his wilderness time to prepare him to lead over a million people on a journey that would last for over 40 years in a harsh dessert where only a shepherd could survive.
God was uniquely preparing Moses to lead.
When you look back on your past, where have you been, who have you spent time with, what training have you received, what really fires you up and makes you feel passionate beyond reason? Mix that background with a radical willingness to say YES to God when he shows up and the world will be changed in a powerful way.
The story of Moses is really a story about how God gets His work done in the world most of the time.
He takes a passionate purpose with a questionable past and provides boot camps of all sorts to prepare him/her for the position He has in mind for them and then He calls them to see if they’re ready to pass the biggest test of all... The ‘Will you trust me to do whatever I ask you to do?’ Test.
Moses tried to fail the test by showing God all of his, ‘buts’ ...
...but, they’ll try to kill me
...but, they won’t believe you sent me
...but, I stutter
In each case God redirected Moses and reminded him that the key player in this drama would be God himself and not Moses. When God says, I will be with you...He means, I’m gonna do the heavy lifting and you just play your part. Just have the courage to go and do what I tell you to do and I’ll be on the move to make things go the way that I intend. It’s gonna look like it’s you, but it’s really ME. So, get going, and I will be with you.
When we see the story of Moses as powerful as it is to see what God did with him, somehow it’s easy to pass the story off as being an ‘Old Testament God doing Old Testament Style’ work.
If you think that God was demanding with Moses just wait til you see how demanding Jesus was on his followers.
Check out what Jesus says to His followers in these passages:
Matthew 16:24-25 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it.
Matthew 8:22 (GOD’S WORD Translation)
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Matthew 19:21 (The Message)
21"If you want to give it all you've got," Jesus replied, "go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me."
Luke 14:33
“Simply put, if you're not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can't be my disciple.”
Someway in the church in America we’ve cast Jesus like he’s the lead in the cast on the ‘Good-Ship Lollypop’ and he sings with a limp wrist and a lisp. ‘On the goo-oo- od ssship LollyPop, it’s a sssswee-eet trip to the candy-ssshop...’ and we imagine that Jesus just came to sing us sweet little songs as He takes our lists of preferred candies and fills little polka-dotted candy bags for us joyfully singing all the while.
Would you please show me that in the nearest Bible that you can find? It’s not in mine.
But, what is in mine, is a Jesus, Son of God, who is demanding and manly and who does exactly what God says to do it when God says to do in the manner that God says to do it. Jesus says that ‘The Father and I are one and I do whatever I see Him doing’. So, Jesus is God in the flesh and He operates with His followers and would-be followers just as God acted with Moses.
We’d do well to replace our Good-ship lollypop Jesus image with a Super-Bowl Winning NFL Coach in the locker room of a championship game at half-time. A coach who expects that these players are 100% committed to earning and wearing that Super-Bowl championship ring. A coach who expects that the plays will be ran that He calls when he calls them in the fashion that he calls them. A coach that expects to win!
(not some triumph that hurts and maims people but the triumph of the King Jesus and His Kingdom that comes to set prisoners free, that cares for widows and orphans, that has dinner with rich sinners and calls them into His Kingdom, that sort of thing...)
If you’re gonna win a Championship then you’re gonna give up some things to get there. You’re gonna be willing to subject your life to a level of discipline and rigor and sacrifice that people wearing jerseys in the stands and watching you play on television with a bag of popcorn can scarcely imagine.
But, someday when you hold up that trophy and you wear that ring and all the associated bling -- you’ll know one thing -- you did what others would not do so that you can live like others cannot even imagine.
Jesus reminds us in the locker room here today... eye hasn’t seen and you’ve not even begun to imagine what it’s gonna be like when we win the prize that God has in front of us. And, it’s okay to trade whatever you have to today to be on this team and to win the game that God has in front of us.
Weenies, wimps, and good-ship lollypoppers don’t get in on what God is up to in the world.
When God calls you into the game, will you say yes? Will you step up? Will you suit up and get out there and play with your whole heart? Will you?
Jesus is the most demanding head coach of all time.
And, just in case you wonder if the calling of Jesus was just reserved for his physical followers back in the day, consider his final challenges in Matthew 28 when He is commissioning us, His future followers to suit up, get into the game and give it all we’ve got!
Just like Moses we’ll have to let go of our ‘buts’ and get over our busted past and allow God to be ‘THE MAN’ in the places He calls us into, and He will.
But, we’ll have to throw down our past successes & failures and our present security and pick up the uncertainty of following God. Will you do that?
Jeff Fuson -Point Leader of Phos Church near Louisville Kentucky -Leadership Keynote Speaker -Husband / Daddy -Missional Church Planter
